“Lemonade”!? Maybe it’s time that someone made an official comment on the human fetish for pitch-shifted vocals short of the threshold set by Alvin & The Chipmunks. Moreover, maybe it’s time we stop giving retrospective hate to Aqua, who at the very least mainstreamed the idea of having inanimate love interests (my personal reading), a feat that would’ve been much more difficult had Lene Nystrøm’s vocals not been upped to the point of bursting appeal. Repetition might’ve had the tendency to gnaw, but don’t bother trying to deny the song’s initial catchiness and the fact that your blonde wig ownership was designed to increase empathy with Barbie’s jubilant mindset. Don’t!

SOPHIE’s got something slightly different going on here with new track “Lemonade.” The vocal samples scream “bubblegum,” but they’re also hoisted over a layer of minimal, bass-y, and poppy beats. Seeing him live a few months ago brought more hard electronics than I was prepared for, and you know his breakthrough song “Bipp,” the track (of 2013) that basically spurned my ticket purchase in the first place? Deliberately omitted from the set! Just keep that in mind in case you’re keen on catching the red-haired producer at any of his upcoming shows (a few of which are already sold out). The lemonade’s free, though, and it’s mixed with some chocolate here.

Low Concept is the new collaborative effort between Brooklyn-based producer Daniel Fisher, a.k.a. Physical Therapy, and Finland-born/Berlin-based producer Ville Haimala, who works with fellow countryman Martti Kalliala as Renaissance Man. Fisher and Haimala have convened in Berlin to put out their first EP, Bugz, which will be released in September through the young London/New York label White Asega.

Ever coated in bittersweet irony, both artists like to play with the especially thin line that exists between high- and lowbrow dance music. Take Renaissance Man’s 2009 spraycan-sampling ”Spraycan,” which flirts with musique concréte while never leaving pitchy rave territory. Modeselektor’s techno-absurdist antics might be an apt comparison.

The Bugz EP will provide three straight-ahead, no-nonsense club bangers (or four if you purchase it digitally), but, according to the press release, the title track “is delivered from the point of view of a DJ looking down on the teeming masses of dancers below the booth.” So it seems the playfulness remains — good thing.

I decided to pretty much tune out everything relevant about R&B singer Jeremih after one horrifying summer incident where my mother requested to hear “that song that everyone has been talking about, ‘Birthday Sex,’ I think it’s called?” I probably would have told you he was just a one-hit wonder, a novelty act, if you had asked me about him just days ago.

BUT! It appears that Jeremih has kept himself quite busy since that year where everyone went around singing “Birthday Sex” to people on their birthdays. He released an album in 2010, featuring collaborations with Ludacris and 50 Cent that apparently did sort of well on the Billboard charts, and just put out an EP with the producer Shlohmo. Now he’s set to release a new album via Def Jam called Thumpy Johnson in the fall.

Before then, however, the man who once asked the world to put aside their candles and cake in favor of some birthday lovin’ will release a mixtape of material that didn’t quite make the Thumpy cut. Said mixtape is aptly titled N.O.M.A. (Not On My Album), and it will drop on August 4. Here’s a video for “She Know It” off that one:

Louisiana duo Generationals’ music is the sound of ENDLESS SUMMER. Whether the lyrics are about the good times or bad, the melodies are full of wind chimes clinking on the front porch, lemonade bought from neighbor kids, and sunlight dappling through the trees. And that’s because Generationals is the music of FRIENDSHIP. It’s true: Ted Joyner and Grant Widmer have been buddies since high school and making music together since 2008. And on their last three records they handcrafted the albums at home with another pal, Daniel Black, but now — in a lesson most often taught by rainbow-colored ponies or talking vegetables — they’re learning the value of letting others into their magical friend circle.

The latest member of the Generatonals Team is the one and only Richard Swift, the singer-songwriter and producer behind records by the likes of The Shins, Damien Jurado, Laetitia Sadier, Foxygen, and The Mynabirds. So Generationals met up with Swift at his studio in Oregon and together they shared and shaped the songs that would eventually become their new album, Alix. It drops September 16 via Polyvinyl. Bonus features include rainbows, little cartoon hearts with wings, and HUGS.

I don’t really know the “science” behind it, but I know for a fact that when a record label and band love each other very much, they go together inside an enclosed space — a photo booth at the county fair or a motel room, for instance — and they spend some quality time alone. When they come out: poof! bam! shamalamadingdong! The artist is “signed” and the record label is “grinning” from “ear to ear.” Examples? I got a million of ‘em. How about O’Death with Northern Spy? This very news section let you in on that little secret back in April, but the right honorable Nobodaddy couldn’t really comment on any details just then because none had emerged.

Well now, gestation periods being what they are, I’ve got more than a couple details to drop-kick into that backyard croquet tournament you’ve got planned. Like a release date: October 7. A title: Out of Hands We Go. A tracklisting: below, like usual. A quote from the press release: “On Out of Hands We Go, O’Death return to a focus on live performances with [Greg] Jamie’s voice and lyrics planted firmly in the center of the band’s dynamic arrangements, a stark departure from the multi-tracked and meticulously overdubbed Outside.” I’ve also got a pre-order link and a giant pile of tour dates for you. And! Because you’ve been good, I even went to the trouble of embedding “Wrong Time” off the album below. Don’t mention it; it really was no trouble at all.

Out of Hands We Go tracklisting:

01. Herd
02. Wrong Time
03. Roam
04. All Is Light
05. Wait For Fire
06. Go and Play With Your Dead Horses
07. Apple Moon
08. When My Dog Gets Out Let Him Run
09. We Had A Vision
10. Heal In The Howling
11. Isavelle
12. Reprise

Detroit’s Ritual Howls will release their second LP Turkish Leather through felte Records on September 30. No, it’s not techno. No, it’s not a Dilla reissue. So what the heck is it!?

Well, it’s kind of like if David Lynch directed a modern-day Western (or Midwestern, heh) set in Detroit with hipster cowboys. Hopefully that helps.

I know it doesn’t. Ritual Howls is Ben Saginaw, Chris Samuels, and Paul Bancell (Fun fact: Saginaw’s brother is Shigeto). They use guitar, drums, and bass, like a rock band, but also synths, plenty of tasteful reverb, and field samples — “sound design turned pop,” as the press release so nicely puts it. The fusion fully evokes the Detroit mythology, whilst operating apart from that raw, four-on-the-floor sound (or Dilla sound) more often associated with it.

They’ve released the first track from the album, “Zemmoa,” and you may want to stream it below. Listen for the ping pong sample tucked in there. Furthermore, you may want to check out their first album if you like the track. You may also want to read the tracklist for Turkish Leather, and you may also want to pre-order it. You are in control.

Turkish Leather tracklist:

01. Zemmoa
02. The Taste of You
03. Take Me Up
04. My Friends
05. Final Service
06. Helm
07. No Witnesses
08. Turkish Leather